The Intricacies of Time
by Sileny
Summary: Regulus Black is dead. Correction: Regulus Black was dead. Further correction: Regulus Black should still be dead. Instead, he's standing on the steps of Grimmauld Place, a very picture of the rejection of all the laws, rules, and regulations ever put upon his person. Miraculously, heretically, Regulus Black is alive.
1. Chapter 1

**The Intricacies of Time**

* * *

" _Someone, somewhere, seeks to right a wrong that has been done to them. They take the greatest care to change as little as possible, but still they cannot restore everything to as it once was. How could it, when the wrong that which is righted now cuts through a series of other wrongs and of other rights? The intricacies of time are that all is connected in past, present, and future, and to change one is to change all."_ – excerpt from Oberon Yule's "A Series on the Connective Nature of Past, Present, and Future"

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

Regulus Black died on an absolutely miserable day in November.

The day had dawned dreary and grey, with an early morning fog rolling along the street outside of 12 Grimmauld Place that soon turned to rain. Regulus had woken alone, had risen from bed alone, had padded downstairs on his last pass of the familiar old stairwell alone. Breakfast at the old kitchen table had been a morbid affair, as it had been since April when Father had died, and even more so since July when Mother stopped making any effort to come down at the same time as Regulus in the mornings. Kreacher was the very picture of misery, but then again so was Regulus. Both of them had been sporting these new looks all summer so nothing was out of the ordinary.

Regulus's initial plan had been to leave as soon as possible and, subsequently, seal his fate as soon as possible. Kreacher, forever in tune with his (treacherous, wavering, _cowardly_ ) feelings, took his time to clear the plates and wash them up. The old house elf fussed and dawdled over Regulus's cloak. He wrung his wrinkled hands together as Regulus made final adjustments to the two carefully crafted letters that would be his only legacy. He fell into wide-eyed and remorseful silence when Regulus exhausted all possible methods of procrastination, and wound his fingers through Regulus's own when the boy held out his hand.

If Regulus pretended hard enough, he could have said that the shake in his hands was all due to Kreacher, but Regulus was done lying.

The trip to the seaside cave had been every bit as horrible as the stilted morning ritual. Side-along Apparition had never agreed well with Regulus, even as a child. Now an adult, wracked with nerves and burdened with forbidden knowledge, he entertained the very real possibility of simply passing out on the rocky outcrops. Only the crush of his wand and that cursed pendent in his hand keep him upright.

The rest happened in a blur. The slit of his wand against his palm, the grit of the rocks against the cut as he offered up his blood as token of passage. What would Mother say, he wondered, dimly, as the entire thing creaked and groaned, eagerly sucking in his offering. What would Mother have said about him so easily letting the blood of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black drip into the palm of a madman? Surely his parents hadn't preserved the purity of his blood for it to be used like this.

Kreacher crouched at his feet as they went across the lake in the dingy little rowboat. The water rippled all around them in silent promise. Even drawing in breath felt too loud in the oppressive silence, and so Regulus tried his best not to breathe.

"Remember what I told you, Kreacher," he said when they alighted on the curiously illuminated island in the middle and he made the most ungraceful scramble to the basin at its heart. "Sirius is long gone. Father is dead. I am the master now and my word shall override all of Mother's." When he unfurled his hand to pass the replicate locket to the most unhappy house-elf, he found that the piece of jewelry had cut a sharp imprint into his palm. With a harsh swallow, he curls his fingers over it again and strode forward.

The first drop slid down his throat and it's his first taste of liquefied misery. He might have started babbling by the time he swallowed the third cupful; might have started begging like he hadn't since he was eight after the next one. His iron resolve was crumbling, and at some point he had ended up on his knees, his head cradled by Kreacher's spindly hands as cup after cup was poured into his screaming mouth and forced down his spasming throat. His blood may have been the purest in all of Great Britain, but not even that could have saved him from the agony as his head thrashed back onto the rocky ground and he saw stars. He wand dislodged itself from his pocket and clattered off somewhere. No one made any move to retrieve it.

"It is done, it is done!" the elf cried out after that last cup and he had leapt up to switch the lockets. "It is done, Master," Kreacher sobbed, "and Kreacher is leaving."

Regulus swallowed past the bone-dry desert crawling up his throat. He blinked away the tears in his eyes. Forced his body up onto his elbows. "Go," he croaked, "Go and tell no one." The words had scarcely been forced out from between his clenched teeth before there was a resounding crack, and he let his head drop back onto the ground as his ears rung in the echo of the house-elf's departure. He was tired. He was miserable. He was dying of thirst, in addition to actually dying, so he might as well—he really ought to—

The first sip was a welcome relief, powerful enough to have brought a manic grin to his face even as the first of the Inferis burst out of the water. Here he was, Regulus Black, pure and soft as his brother always said but much more foolhardy than any of them ever could have imagined. Here he was, eighteen years old, filled to the brim with poison and armed with only his teeth. "Couldn't take me before this, yeah?" he yelled as the first icy hand clamped down on his wrist. "Well now I'm ready for you!"

He might have laughed then. He might have had just enough time to let out a harsh bark of a laugh that was like Sirius's, back when they were seven and his older brother had left him behind in their Grandfather's haunted shrubbery to fend for himself. He didn't know. By then he was too busy screaming. More hands than he could ever hope to count were clawing at him, and he gulps down the blessedly cold water between gurgled shouts as he sinks lower.

He wondered if Sirius would still call him soft. He wondered if Sirius would come to his funeral. He wondered if Mother would even hold a funeral for him—she seemed so tired and run-down lately and Regulus would never want her to jeopardize her health over something like his own funeral. Maybe it would be better if they didn't hold one. There wouldn't be a body, anyway.

A hand closed around his throat, followed by a second, and then a third. Auburn-colored hair flickered across his wavering vision, followed by dark eyes and a worried frown. Almost hysterically, he thinks about charms that once caused flower petals to rain down like snow and kisses stolen in the quiet sunny corner. Sirius might scoff at his death. Mother might not even make a sound as they lowered an empty casket into the ground. But by Merlin, he hoped that Aria would cry for him.

Regulus Black died on an absolutely miserable day in November. He died with poison in his veins in place of blood, and water in his lungs in place of air. He died with hands on his throat, crushing like vices on his muscles even as more hands drew him down, down, _down_ into the murky depths of the lake. Three days later, his name would be splashed across the pages of the _Daily Prophet_ , and both his mother and his brother would rage—for different reasons, for the same reasons—but then that would be it. Regulus Arcturus Black would fade away, and everyone, sans a house-elf no one would even think to ask, would be none the wiser about how the golden boy of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black perished.

That was the way it should have been, and so that was the way it was.

But then, in early November of 1995, Regulus Black stumbles back into existence on a side street just off Grimmauld Place. He is thirty-four years old, with a worn wand of aspen tucked at his side, wearing a jumper that's just shy of too thin for the weather. His arm aches almost constantly, and his throat still feels the press of phantom hands, but he is irrevocably and undeniably alive. Someone, somewhere, caught in their own troubles, had reset their own time, and Regulus (curiously, puzzlingly) had been caught along with it.

Perhaps, Regulus thinks, he'll get to carve his mark out in history after all.


	2. Chapter 2

_"I looked at him like a stranger, someone I'd never seen before, and he looked at me like I'd been lost to him for a thousand years and finally found."_ — Emme Rollins, Dear Rockstar

* * *

 **Chapter 2  
**

Sirius has learned to live without a great many things throughout the course of his life. There was familial acceptance, which he had had once upon a time. But that had been back when Mother had been kind and Father had been proud of them all and his parents had been in love and he had been Regulus's hero. There was friendship, that fickle thing that he had since learned was as delicate as spider silk but with none of the strength. There had been his brother— _brothers_ —because Sirius can look back on his childhood now and recognize that when he loved he loved far too hard and had nowhere to go but towards heartbreak. Once he had had two brothers, and now he had none, and he's—more or less—learned to live with that.

He's also had to learn how to live without a wand, because the first order of business the Aurors had done when they had arrested him was to snap his. His most powerful tool, snapped like the twig it was in their hands. It had been less melodramatic than he had imagined as a child, but looking down at the broken pieces, carelessly tossed to the ground with the last bits of its residual magic sparking out, had twisted something viciously into the wounded thing in his chest.

The hurt's settled into a dull ache over the years. Nowadays, he only misses it when he can muster up the energy to remember it: the heavy weight of the ebony, the worn section of the engravings from where he rubbed circles into it with his thumb, the familiar sound it made when he slashed it through the air.

He makes it a point to not remember it.

For better or for worse, Sirius had found that he didn't even really need a wand. There were not very many opportunities to use magic in Azkaban, and he'd been an animagus for long enough that the shift could be done without one. This was the only thing he kept up with in his cold and lonely cell, where he stubbornly ignored the new and unpleasantly deep-seated feeling of nausea in the pit of his stomach each time he forced himself to remember the way his bones and muscles tore themselves apart only to reknit into a new form. Man to dog. Dog to man. Around and around he went.

In the cold of his cell, Sirius kept himself going with thoughts of Peter. He imagined that it was Peter he was tearing into when his miniscule ration came in. He boiled down all of his rage into a few cutting words that he could say when he wrung Peter's cowardly neck. He kept himself warm with all-consuming hatred because the alternative was to feel the ice-cold tendrils of despair at the loss of James and Lily and sweet little Harry. And when even that wasn't enough, he fueled himself with the bitter satisfaction that Bella and her good-for-nothing family was here, rotting away with him, as some sort of pathetic penance for all the things he didn't do for the wide-eyed baby brother he had lost long before he had lost his brother of choice.

Now that he's out of Azkaban, he's got a new wand, ebony and dragon heartstring like his old one, but that's where the similarities end. The half-inch it's lost took him by surprise, as did the new flexibility of the wood. There are no carvings on this wand; just a few knobs spaced along the handle that he has since learned he can fit his fingers comfortably enough around. It makes the weight of it strange—foreign—and he spends a lot of time in the solitude of his house arrest frowning down at it. His old wand sang for him when he called for it. This one doesn't, not by a long shot, but all the same it is capable of igniting a lost reassuring spark in him.

Tonight, he's expecting another dull evening. His birthday had come and gone with little fanfare the day before: Molly had sent a cake; Harry had written him a letter, hasty and secretive but oozing with sincerity; the few Order members he cared more about had dropped in when they could through the heavily warded Floo to offer congratulations. He and Remus had split the cake (triple chocolate) and a dusty vintage Sirius had pilfered from the back of the cabinets (exquisite but utterly wasted on both of their tongues). Remus had left him the last slice of cake as a birthday courtesy, and Sirius was entertaining evening plans of eating it with a healthy helping of firewhiskey when the peripheral wards chimed.

Stiffly, he sets the plate down onto the table. There's a creak on the stairs as Remus comes down, murmuring about how it's probably nothing. After all, the peripheral wards encompass the favored apparition zone of the Order, and it's mostly set up as an announcement for visitors who haven't been granted access to the Floo. It's not selective, so it has the consistent added annoyance of announcing anyone so long as they step into the zone. Even in Sirius's relatively short stint of house arrest, there have been plenty of false alarms involving some Muggle couples sneaking out for a date and lingering for a kiss or two under the lamps. It's probably the same thing tonight: some Muggle boy being chivalrous and dropping his date at home, finishing up a romantic night with a quality snog, because some Muggles actually _like_ living on this street and conducting their romantic business here. It's something Sirius will never understand.

Nor does he really care. He's stir-crazy from being in this house, from being privy to the Order's knowledge and the Order's plans yet being barred from ever being a part of any of them. Every part of him itches for a fight. Remus needs only to take one look at him before he knows this, concern carving deep lines onto his face.

He hits the last step and reaches out for Sirius. There are only two short inches between his hands and Sirius's before the inner wards go off, tripped because whoever is outside has stepped within range and has a wand to trigger them with. Remus looks almost dismayed as his hands fly to his wand. There's still the probability that this can be one of those "probably nothing" nights, but it's looking slimmer by the minute.

There had been nothing about a friendly visit from anyone this evening, after all.

Sirius rolls to his feet in a fluid, practiced motion. His new wand, now as much a part of him as his old one ever was, is pointed down the hall at the front door, poised and ready. His blood is roaring in his ears, even as he gives a short nod to Remus who mouths urgently at him about restraining spells. They're waiting, tense, for the last few wards to start screaming, to indicate that the house is being forcibly probed to surrender its door.

The wards don't go off. Remus relaxes minutely, only to stiffen immediately at the quiet click of the lock. Sirius's heart hammers out a painful rhythm in his ribs—that last ward was one of the house's originals. It had been in place since the first Black took up residence in this depressing house, and it had been faithfully repaired by every generation onwards. It had been left in place underneath Dumbledore's Fidelius only because of two reasons. One, like all the other original protections on the house, it had been too deeply ingrained in the foundations to risk removing and rebuilding. Two—and here's where Sirius forces a breath down so that he can focus on the sharp _thud thud_ of his heart—it's a blood ward that only lets in members of the family residing in the house.

In Sirius's childhood, there had only ever been five people keyed into the house. There was his grandfather, as the previous head of family. His father, who as his grandfather's eldest son had inherited the house. His mother, who had traveled that short distance across family branches to marry back into the family. He and Regulus, as their sons.

That had made Grimmauld Place the most attractive place to put down roots for the Order. Everyone who had had access was either Sirius or dead. His cousins would never be able to get in until both Black sons were gone, and he was here to stay, if only out of spite.

Impossibly, the gilded knob that his parents had purchased and installed after a particularly nasty winter when Sirius was thirteen turns. The door, heavy and weather-beaten and in a desperate need for a new coat of paint, creaks open. Sirius's wand is lowering even as Remus's presses forward, the _"Stupify!"_ flying off his tongue as quick as lightning. The angle is awkward, but it hits, and Regulus Black falls the rest of the way into the hallway before their very eyes.

Remus lets out a quiet strangled noise that accompanies the dull _thud_ Regulus's body makes as it hits the ancient floorboards. A flick of his wand conjures up ropes, and a sharp movement of his wrist brings their guest forward the last few feet inside. The door swings shut with an unhappy bang.

The only thing Sirius can conjure up is an old headline that screams "BLACK HEIR MISSING: TUMULTUOUS DARK FORCES FEEDING ON THEMSELVES?" His hands shake from where they're hidden at his sides, blocked from Remus's questioning gaze with the slight angle of his shoulders.

Regulus Black was very much alive. The wards wouldn't have let him in otherwise. One of his brothers was back.

-x-

Alastor Moody stomps into Grimmauld Place in a little under an hour. By that time, Remus had managed to prop the stunned man into a chair and rebind him tightly. Sirius had entirely foregone the last slice of cake in favor for a double serving of firewhiskey and had been utterly no help at all. Regulus's wand had been plucked from his back pocket and was now lying on the table.

"Better be good," Moody snaps even before he's even fully in the room, shaking off soot from his coat with a harsh snap of his shoulders. His artificial eye swivels around wildly before zooming in onto the unconscious man. "What's this?" His wand had long since been trained on the chair even before the first syllable had left his mouth.

"A stunned man," Sirius snaps back. Remus elbows him sharply in the ribs. "Regulus Black," he amends through gritted teeth, "my soft, daft, _supposedly dead_ little brother."

"Yes, we're all very aware about your family relations, Black," Moody says shortly. "Neither of you were supposed to leave the house so how did you end up with him?" Remus and Sirius never learn if he's expecting an actual answer from them or not—the fireplace roars again and Kingsley Shacklebolt steps through, followed shortly by Nymphadora Tonks. Moody's eye swivels to her bubblegum pink head, and he heaves a grumpy sigh at her grin. Kingsley, at least, looked properly somber, and gives both Remus and Sirius a short nod of acknowledgement.

"Our Black here claims this is Black the younger," Moody says in lieu of greeting. Tonks edges along the perimeter of the room until she gets to a spot just over the silent Regulus's shoulder, wand drawn and ready. "Unfortunately Black the younger's been dead for the last 15 years, so we're going to see who he really is." Remus's elbow once again digs painfully into Sirius's side as he opens his mouth in preparation to say something, and he shoots his old friend a sour look as Moody hurls the most aggressive Rennervate any of them have every seen at Regulus. He stirs feebly before his shoulders snap up as far as they can go with the ropes, and then he's coughing.

It's a terrible sound, on par with what Remus sounds like when he's transforming. It rattles Regulus's chest and the force of it causes the chair to shake. It's deep and guttural and in the few half-seconds between each cough he wheezes in an attempt to pull air back into his lungs. Sirius has never heard anyone cough like that before, not even in Azkaban, where they were all in danger of dying of pneumonia.

Several long moments pass as the worst of the cough subsides. Regulus's chest heaves against the ropes. He doesn't even quite manage to fully lift his head; just raises his chin enough so that he can peer out at the assembled group from beneath his bangs. Moody, front and center. Remus and Sirius, side by side by the low table. Kingsley, between them, retrieving a few small bottles from one pocket or another from his robes. A reflection of Tonks is visible in the little ornamental mirror above the mantle.

"Your name!" Moody barks out. When Regulus only takes a few more shuddering breaths but is otherwise silent, he knocks the end of his staff against the floor. "This isn't a picnic, Black the younger! We haven't all day."

Sirius can't take this anymore. "He's Regulus Arcturus Black, Moody," he snaps, sidestepping another jab from Remus. When Moody turns his glare to him, he lifts his chin defiantly. "Look," he says, after several long moments have passed, breaking eye contact and scrubbing a hand through his curls in frustration. "I get the whole being vigilant thing and I get the whole my-brother-used-to-be-dead thing, but he walked through that door and never tripped any of my father's wards. And believe me when I say that I realize how incredibly outrageous it is that I have anything positive to say about my father, but he wasn't one of the best curse-breakers for nothing. No one can walk through our front door uninvited if they weren't originally keyed into the wards. No amount of Polyjuice or glamouring or whatever can get past that. That's Regulus. It can't be anyone _but_ Regulus."

"An acceptable argument, if _you're_ defending Orion Black," Moody concedes, "but that doesn't forgive negligence. We'll see if your words hold up." That's all the warning he gives before he's shooting a series of spells at Regulus in quick succession: anticharms and counters and Finite and Specialis Revelio. He glows at unnatural shades of red and green and blue as each spell hits, but nothing changes. Moody switches spells, sending Regulus writhing before he doubles up and dry-heaves. Still nothing.

"No spells. No obvious potions. Possibly Imperius but we'll need a medical examiner to be sure," he mutters between each spell, sounding grumpier by the second. "Can't rule out any of those obscure potions either, which will also need a medical examiner."

He moves close enough so that he can prod Regulus's forehead with his wand. "Well, we'll get to know you regardless. I suppose you'll just have to sit tight until we get the examiner in."

"We don't have anyone with that kind of skill," Kingsley says. Between all the members of the Order, there was enough knowledge of rudimentary healing spells that they could take care of most issues. They divided potion ingredients and actual potion orders amongst all of them to keep up supplies and dodge suspicion for the sheer quantity they needed. If anything was too serious they turned to St. Mungo's. Getting their hands on a certified medical examiner without announcing themselves to the Death Eaters or their sympathizers was out of the question.

Moody shoots an almost lazy Prior Incantato at Regulus's neglected wand. A series of general household spells appears: some summoning charms, a levitation charm, and a small controlled Incendio most likely aimed at a stove. "Moody," Kingsley stresses, and Moody heaves out a large put-upon sigh.

"Get Reier, then. Everyone in that family is trained and discrete."

Kingsley pales. "We can't just grab the Head of Advanced Spell Damage!" he hisses. Sirius doesn't see how a medical examiner is going to change anything—Regulus was Regulus, unfortunately, and Moody was grasping at straws trying to find prove some nonexistent method of disguise.

Moody rolls his eyes, except that his eyes don't move at the same speed or even in the same direction. It is profoundly uncomfortable to watch; Tonks looks morbidly fascinated. "Not that one, obviously," he says, "The younger one. This one," he jabs his wand back towards Regulus, who has his eyes closed tiredly, "isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so take your sweet time strolling down to the hospital and inquiring on Reier the younger's schedule. Go on then." He waves his non-wand hand irritably at Kingsley. "If you're going to dawdle anywhere, then do it in the hospital lobby. Leave the Veritaserum here though."

Kingsley shoots one last desperate glance at Remus and Sirius, as if either of them were capable of stopping Moody when he gets in one of his moods. Remus gives a helpless shake of his head, and defeated, Kingsley slinks out through the Floo.

-x-

Entering St. Mungo's is always a harrowing experience. There's always a massive amount of activity on the ground floor, and the combination of the confused, the worried, and the purposeful is never a good mix. Kingsley hastily steps out of the Visitor's Floo area as a family tumbles out practically right on top of him. They rush off to the Receptionist's desk without even a backwards glance at him, and then rush off down a hall, following the signs towards the wings of the Artefact Accidents department.

Kingsley takes a few seconds to collect his wits before he steps out from the little alcove he had hastily jammed himself into. He bypasses the Receptionist's desk entirely and makes a beeline for the lifts, giving the line at the hospital's apothecary a wide berth as he goes. When the doors open again on the fourth floor, he's greeted with a large sign that says "SPELL DAMAGE." The various wards of the floor all point towards the right, so he turns left, winding his way down the hall.

Eventually, the hall opens up into a rounded reception area. A Welcome Witch sits behind the desk in the center. An imposing set of double doors stands behind her. "ADVANCED SPELL DAMAGE" hangs from a sign suspended above her head. The receptionist is talking to a Healer wearing dark robes with a lime green patch on their back and a band around their upper arm. Both of them look up at Kingsley as he steps up to the desk.

"I'm here to see Healer Reier," Kingsley says, flashing both of them a winning smile. "I have an appointment with her and offered to pick her up from work, but she neglected to tell me when her shift ended."

Both witches look at him, then each other. "You poor thing," the receptionist says, "don't you know she's married?" Kingsley sputters, which the Healer seems to find hilarious. "Don't worry," the receptionist grins, "one or two outings after work isn't going to ruin her marriage. She's so in love—doesn't that make you envious?" She directs this last part, along with a stack of parchment, at the Healer, who nods solemnly. Turning back to Kingsley, she says, "Healer Upton should be finishing up her shift right about now. If you hang around you'll be able to catch her before she heads to the Floos."

"I'll let her know she has a visitor," the Healer says. "Thanks for these, Lynna. You were a big help."

"Anytime, Healer Morley!" the receptionist calls cheerily as the doors open and close. "You heard her, sir. Just sit tight with a magazine or something. Since you won't be entering the wards, you won't need to have your wand checked." Kingsley says his thanks before making his way to one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs, sinking in a good distance away from a distressed couple who look like they haven't slept in days.

A brochure he picks up from the end table proclaims that the unit encompasses three massive wings with its own private Apparition zone, tailored especially for the ease of the Healer teams popping in and out for their calls. Visitors must check in and surrender their wands to the receptionist before stepping into the wards, as opposed to other wards which let visitors keep the wand after check in. Wand detection charms at all doors verify staff members. The ward is equipped with a veritable fleet of antiseptic charms and top-of-the-line soundproofing. As the name entails, Advanced Spell Damage took on any adequately serious case involving spellwork.

The brochure stopped being informative after that. It doesn't mention anything about Advanced Spell Damage being the forefront in dark magic reversal. Kingsley himself only knows this through his Auror training. There is no other institution in the world that has such a large, well-rounded staff capable of dealing with heavy injuries of the dark variety. And at their head, stretching generations back to the hospital's founding with Mungo Bonham, is the Reier family. This department, tucked into the heart of Spell Damage, is the empire that the Reiers had built up piece by painful little piece.

"All old families have Dark texts in their libraries," Moody had scoffed at his trainees, Kingsley included, back in the day. "This shouldn't shock any of you. A lot of the old magics are now classified as Dark. But you're not here to argue about what people can and cannot have in their libraries. You're here to do something about the people who do terrible things with what they have in them."

Kingsley has no idea what exactly is in the Reier family's library, but he can more or less guess just by the reputation of their prized department amongst his own department. Unfortunately, it will make his task of bringing a medical examiner back to Grimmauld Place that much harder. He's not going to stand in the middle of the reception room and tell Reier or Upton or whatever her name was where the Order's headquarters are. Neither could he apparate both of them directly out from here—the only publically available apparition point he has is the area around the Visitor's Floo, back on the first floor. He doesn't think it's too unreasonable to think that the employee-designated Floo entrance is also around there, so realistically, he has three floors to convince the Healer to go with him.

He can imagine no scenario where this will be a pleasant conversation.

The heavy doors open and a Healer steps out, a cloak folded nearly over one arm but otherwise still in their Advanced Spell Damage robes. "Lynna, you can send Mr. and Mrs. Reid in whenever you check in their wands. Arnold is ready for them in Room 24." The couple leaps up to their feet and all but fly to the desk. Lynna calls out a quick goodbye before turning to soothe them and take their eager wands to check in. Kingsley puts the brochure aside and stands.

Healer Upton looks decidedly unimpressed to see him. When she addresses him, it is not with the tone she had used earlier. "Auror Shacklebolt," she says, and not even the fact that she has to crane her head up to look at him manages to diminish the intensity of her gaze. Her tone is flat, with thinly veiled surprise that is tinged with suspicion. "I wasn't aware we had something planned. Imagine my surprise when I was told I had a visitor."

"Our department has some work matters that we felt would be better addressed face-to-face with you," Kingsley says smoothly. "Perhaps I can walk you to the Floos as we discuss?" He offers out his arm, and she gives it a tight-lipped frown before accepting.

"And are you asking me rather than my brother because the esteemed head of our Advanced Spell Damage has a busier schedule than little old me?" she asks. They step into the lift and Kingsley presses the lobby button.

"That was part of it," he says. The lift pauses at Potions and Plant Poisonings to let on a couple of other Healers headed home. "I was told that you are a certified medical examiner?"

"I am." The lift reaches the ground floor and they file off after the Poisonings Healers. "Is there another case coming up?" There's a faint line of tension in her shoulders as Kingsley guides them around visitors. "I'm sorry, Auror Shacklebolt, but formal enquiries for an examiner's presence are made with a request signed by both the Head Auror and an appropriate representative of the Wizengamot." She starts to pull her arm away from his. "I apologize, but I'm afraid any further conversation of this matter must wait until I have been officially assigned from such a summons."

They've stepped into the apparition zone.

Kingsley pauses and lets her fully remove her arm from his before he grabs her by the shoulders. "I'm sorry," he says, and then he turns them both on the spot, and they vanish with a crack.


	3. Chapter 3

_"I mourn for that most lonely thing... I knew a phoenix in my youth." — William Butler Yeats_

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

When Aria was a child, her nanny had put her to bed while reading fairytale stories about fair witches whisked away from their gloomy fates to a happily ever after by their gallant wizard loves. At that age, having someone grab her hand and twist them both away in apparition to hidden grottos glowing with fairy lights had seemed romantic. But Aria is no longer a child, and she hates side-along apparition if she's not the one directing it. There is something terribly unnerving about feeling your stomach and center of gravity being shoved forcefully out of line, coupled by the extreme sense of vertigo and immediate sense of severe pulling, all gravitating around someone just off to your side. The only comparable experience Aria has is to a Muggle rollercoaster, with the one and time Matthew had convinced her onto one having ended just short of a disaster for all parties involved (and, perhaps, some not involved).

The only thing Shacklebolt has going for him is his iron grip. He's a grown man with big hands and all the strength of an Auror behind them, and they clamp onto her arms like vices. That's good, because Aria's first instinct—stupid as it is—is to forcibly attempt to pull herself out of the apparition. Shacklebolt's turn is neat and tight, with perfect posture from the both of them, and Aria supposes that once the shock and outrage are over—at being deceived, at being basically kidnapped from the hospital of all places—she'll be able to appreciate Shacklebolt's unending attention to detail. Now, however, she is livid, with a good deal of panic simmering underneath that, and with just enough leg room to deliver an aborted but aggressive kick to Shacklebolt's shin as they begin to spin out of the twist.

Shacklebolt makes an equally aggressive and aborted noise of pain when the toe of her boot makes a solid connection. The shock of the kick breaks his positioning and ruins the trajectory of what would have otherwise been a perfect landing. They hit the new plane of existence at an angle, the surroundings whirling around them as Aria trips over Shacklebolt. He topples and slams his hip into the corner of the decorative cabinet that suddenly appears in what seems to be an already too-narrow hallway. Aria wastes no time in attempting to wrestle her arm out from underneath her tangled cloak, throwing it out for balance at the same time her other hand is clawing for her wand. Even at a glance she can tell that this place is tight and full of nooks and crannies. She needs to leave immediately.

The telltale red sparks of a disarming charm skitter across the wallpaper, followed by a cracking sound as a stunner follows hot on its tail. The sparks graze her cheek and burn as her fingers finally manage to wrap themselves around the handle of her wand. A shriek sounds somewhere in the house, piercing and frenetic. _"Filth! FILTH!"_ it echoes, as spells scatter over the shield that Aria throws up. The edges fray worryingly, so she rips it down from the inside, throwing out two stunning spells in quick succession under the miniature flash-bang it produces. A crass expletive sounds out from somewhere in the kicked-up dust, and she bares her teeth in a grim grin as she shoots off a sharp _reducto_ for good measure. Shrapnel from what used to be a coat rack rain down on all. The shrieking climbs in pitch to an earth-shattering caterwaul.

Aria's attempt to apparate is thwarted before she can even get to a quarter-turn. The picture frames on the wall shatter from a return curse, and she flinches back from the combination of sharp rain and noise. She whips the glass shards blindingly back with a slash of her wand before jerking it to the side. The abominable troll's leg umbrella stand by the door shudders and leaps up, and she sends it careening down the hall with little time to spare as she makes a scramble for the handle.

There's a shout from behind her, a nervous "Hey! _Hey—woah!_ " that's barely distinguishable under the relentless wailing of the house. A crackling blast, and then an _expelliarmus_ quickly thereafter finally succeeds in hitting home. Aria's wand hand stings, and her wand flies up and out of her slack grip with only the faintest twitch to show for her attempt to keep possession of it. Alone, unarmed, with ringing ears and a mounting headache from all the noise, Aria pivots with a snarl.

Pumped with adrenaline that's fueled half by rage and half by desperation, she forces the tingling fingers of her hand into a fist and throws a punch into the proverbial dark. It connects in what can only be a stroke of beginner's luck to the tune of Shacklebolt's delayed attempt at a warning to the poor sod standing behind her. Her hand is too numb from the disarming to really register the pain of a shoddy impact, but Remus Lupin still stumbles back with a faintly wounded sound, two wands held loosely in one hand while the other flies to his jaw. A faint dribble of blood escapes his mouth when he tries to speak again; he must have bitten his tongue. The house screams: _"The proud home of my forebearers! How dare you filthy traitors and children of scum come to bring disorder here! Get out! GET OUT!"_

A binding spell catches Aria in the side then and slams her shoulder harshly into the wall. Pain rockets through her arm, and she clenches her jaw as her head knocks into the plaster. The remaining frames rattle with the impact, and the shock of it all, combined with the never-ceasing sting of disarmament, leaves her shaking. One of the occupants in the smaller portraits faints away from shock, falling dramatically in a flourish of painted robes over an ornate divan. Moody stomps in, accompanied by the last lingering remnants of spells that crack and spark on the floors before dying out.

"This change of interior decorating isn't much better than what was there before," is his terse observation. "Also, someone shut that damned portrait up! Can hardly hear myself think on a good day without her useless caterwauling." There's a flash of bright pink down the hall, and then all the noise in the house clicks off. Only a few echoes remain to bounce faintly among the rafters to the tune of Aria's pounding heart and the ragged drag of her breath.

Moody's glass eye swivels over to her. She scowls back from where she's awkwardly pinned, fingers flexing uselessly in the air as though she wants to rake them down his face in a last-ditch attempt to break free. "Could have made a halfway decent Auror out of you if your father didn't have his way," Moody says, sounding almost fond if he was capable of fondness. The bindings loosen enough that Aria can sink to the dusty and littered floor, and as she slides down more and more of the fight bleeds out of her, replaced with exhaustion.

"What do you want from me?" Her voice cracks. There are two well-known Aurors in front of her—no, three; she can now recognize the bright pink as the much-talked-about Nymphadora Tonks. Remus Lupin, who had been splashed all over the papers two years ago when he took up that Defense Against the Dark Arts post in Hogwarts. And behind him—

"Sirius Black," she huffs out on a just-barely hysterical laugh. The distinctive Black family looks are unmistakable, even after being ruined by grainy newspaper photos and enlarged onto massive Azkaban wanted posters. Mass murderer and terrorist—on the run since the past year. And now here he was. Sirius's mouth twists into a razor-sharp grin. The lamplight that reflects off the broken shards of glass on the floor gives his eyes an almost feral gleam. Aria drags her scraped hands over the floorboards, grounding herself on the lancing pain as shrapnel grinds into them.

She swallows hard and jerks her chin up, forcing down the shaking. Maybe if she looked more confident and intimidating she'd feel it. And it must work, on some level, at least, because when she tries again—"What do you want?"—her voice is remarkably steady for how off-kilter she feels.

Moody looms over her, and she tries desperately to cling onto her bravado, fake and brittle as it was. Sweet Circe, if he wasn't terrifying the times she met him on actual business, he was definitely terrifying now. "You're going to prove to us if a dead man can waltz back from the brink, Reier."

"Upton," she whispers, like a desperate prayer. She wants to go home. She wants to curl up next to Matthew on their squashy couch while one of his favorite BBC documentaries is playing on the telly, sipping at hot chocolate from her favorite Tesco mug.

What she gets instead is this: she's helped up by Lupin, who has the decently to look mildly apologetic, despite having just been punched. Shacklebolt's hand is to her back, as if he's on guard in case she tries to bolt. They guide her into a dusty parlor after Moody and Tonks under the unflinching eyes of Sirius Black. And there, tied up to a stiff wooden chair is—

" _No_ ," she chokes out, and it almost sounds like a sob. Even with his head bowed like that the Black family looks are unmistakable, and Aria stumbles on the dizzying rush of memories of corner teashops and a sixth sense saying _"you will never see this boy again."_

"What did you _do_ ," she whispers, as his head slowly lifts and Aria relives that sinking feeling she buried years ago with the articles that spoke of people being missing, missing, _gone_. The last thing she's aware of is the reflection of her haunted expression in storm-grey eyes, and then she promptly passes right out.

-x-

Aria comes to when streaks of sunlight start landing on her face. She's tucked in a mound of lavender-scented linens atop a lumpy mattress. Her back aches and her hands sting and there's something pounding on the back of her skull. The walls and ceiling are too richly decorated to be her home or the hospital, and it's too dark and sober to be her childhood home at Maythorn Hall. She doesn't know where this is. She doesn't—

She springs up, which hurts everything, and her vision swims alarmingly. Her clothes are grungy and sleep-rumpled. There are bruises peeking out under her sleeves, and her hands have been bound with a stripe of bandage. Her wand is on the side table a little ways away, and she almost cries first with relief, then with a sharp groan of discomfort, as she stretches to reach it.

The door creaks open and she freezes, eyes flying up to meet those of a portly red-headed woman. They stare at each other for a long moment, and then the other woman's face creases into a warm smile. "Oh, good, you're awake!" she says, sounding genuinely pleased. "We were beginning to worry about you, dear. Alastor wanted to wake you up earlier with a _rennervate_ , but thankfully Remus and Kingsley had enough sense not to shock you even more. I've brought a pot of tea—let's put some color on your face, my dear."

A chipped teacup steaming with hot tea is pushed gently into Aria's hands. The warmth seeps through the bandages, and she catches a faint waft of citrus with a sweet edge of honey. The first sip goes down her throat like a dream.

"Thank you—" She trails off, uncertain.

"Molly, my dear. Molly Weasley."

Recognition lights up in Aria's eyes. "Oh! Bill Weasley's mother," she says, and Molly looks pleasantly surprised.

"You know my son?" She looks faintly pleased, obviously very proud of her child. Aria nods into her tea.

"He's come by Advanced Spell Damage before," she says quietly. Molly looks less pleased, and Aria shrinks back a little. "Ah… but he was always one of the more… careful of the Curse-Breakers we'd see."

"He _is_ very good at his job," Molly says with a nod. The smile comes back to her face. "Take your time with the tea," she says kindly. "I'll let them know downstairs that you're awake." Then she's off, her footsteps echoing down the stairs, and Aria is left alone with her tea.

She goes downstairs herself ten minutes later, after a quick set of charms to freshen up and remove the worst of the grunge. Her eyes catch an ornate clock in the hall, and the dismay cuts through her sharp and bitter. She's been out for _hours_ ; she hadn't gone home at all last night and hadn't even had the chance to send a note. Her husband must be worried. She wants to kiss her baby. She descends the last flight of stairs with purpose that falters and dies away when she steps into a cavernous stone kitchen and heads turn to look at her.

"Thank you for finally gracing us with your presence," Sirius Black says snidely. Remus plants an elbow into his side at the same moment that Molly chides him for being civil. Aria focuses on the last bits of warmth from her teacup and thinks about going home.

"I need to return home," she says levelly. "My family will have been worried about my absence."

"We've sent a note ahead," Moody says, entirely unconcerned. "We have business with you, Reier, and we can't let you leave until you've finished with it."

"Upton," Aria cuts in, feeling anger start to curl hot and heavy in the pit of her stomach. "I've married and my name is Upton, now, and I'd appreciate it if you'd address me as such."

"I don't seem to recall any wizards by that name," someone else at the table says, and Aria takes two sharp breaths.

"He is a Muggle," she bites out and watches as everyone immediately looks incredibly uncomfortable. Only Sirius laughs.

"Sweet, little, pure-blooded, Slytherin Reier married a Muggle?" he asks. There is an almost cruel edge to his voice that makes her flinch back almost instinctively, but then she thinks about Matthew, who she's loved since she was twenty-four, magical ability be damned, and she straightens her spine.

"If you so much as even _think_ about looking at him, Sirius Black, I will raze this building to the ground," she hisses, and she means every last word. Hands shift towards wands—hers, his, Remus Lupin's and Kingsley Shacklbolt's. Aria keeps her eyes fixed sharply on mass-murderer Sirius Black and refuses to back down. She's a witch, from the proud and steady Reier bloodline. She'll handle herself come hell or high water but she'll never _ever_ let anyone touch Matthew or her sweet little Jared.

"Put your wands down," Moody barks at them all. He looks coldly amused, like a Kneazle with a foolproof plan to get both the canary _and_ the cream. "You understand now, don't you, _Upton_." He stands. "You will confirm our man's magical signature. It will be done off record; you will not question that we do not have a court order or warrant." He marches up to her, each word punctuated with a heavy step, and grabs her hand. The teacup shatters on the flagstones. "You will tell no one, if you care for your husband." The golden strands of an Unbreakable Vow start to flicker across their joined hands. "We are witnessed by all the members present here today."

Aria bites down hard on her lip, drawing blood. Her gaze skitters from face to face. Hate bubbles in her blood. "I will do the ritual," she finally says, her voice cold, "but know that I keep no secrets from my husband. We are a unit," she hisses, leaning close, right up and into Moody's impassive face, "and my vows to him then will trump any vow here that involves him."

Moody looks distinctly displeased, but he must be pressed for time, because the binding strands of the Vow start to lock down and tighten. "We accept," he grits out.

Aria leans back out of his space. Lifts her chin. She pastes a look of calm and composed disdain despite wanting to scream.

"I accept," she says back, "We will begin immediately."

-x-

When Persephone Weaver started her NEWT Herbology class back in the day, the project that they were assigned was the development and proper raising of a single scrying plant by graduation, all on top of the standard exam preparation. Persephone's original plan had been to have multiple plants, but as it turned out, scrying plants were fickle things and prone to dying at the slightest puff of wind in those first crucial months. They were a small class, barely numbering fifteen, but they must have gone through no less than two hundred or so seedlings in those first few months. Clearly, there had been more than several puffs of wind going wrong in their class.

Looking back, it was more sheer luck than an immensely green thumb that helped her achieve her original goal in the end. It was also good luck that her other NEWT classes did not have quite as finicky of an all-encompassing project, despite being just as difficult. The premise of the project had been simple enough: linked with a person, the plant would mimic their life force and health status, and only needed a good watering once every over day or so when the plant had matured. In the distant past, when Muggles and wizarding folk were still on friendly relations, court Healers were said to have had a few such plants as part of their practice. But it had fallen out of vogue sometime in the late middle ages, only really being practiced by the Japanese now.

Persephone's first successful plant had been linked to her mother. Prospertine Weaver was a generally robust and healthy woman, so the chrysanthemum blooms were usually large and bright, perfectly healthy and beautiful. Her other plants were linked to friends and classmates from her school days. The girls that she roomed with throughout all seven years, where they stayed up late amongst the soft green lamps and used the lapping of the Great Lake to mask their giggles from the neighboring rooms. A few friends that she had made across houses, bonds forged over shared class projects and extracurriculars. The handful of younger Slytherin boys, because they had been conveniently around the Common Room and Percy could bully several of them into agreeing to her project by pulling the upperclassman trump card. There was a plant for Io Yaxley. Nike Travers. Alcyone Fawley. Wilheim Mulciber (the prat). Marcellus Avery. Evan Rosier and Regulus Black and even Severus Snape, although the latter had been thoroughly unhappy about the entire thing and even grumpier when his test plant had died.

Percy had graduated with a good inventory of scrying plants that she had kept adding to in the years that followed, until she finally had to move them out of their pots on her patio and into a corner of the garden, carefully mapped out with a cute little cobbled path. They are her pride and joy, even if Avery's strawberry plant had threatened to overrun her terrace at any given opportunity, and she'd grown used to the comfort of seeing her plants thrive from beyond her kitchen window as she takes breakfast every morning.

So she had been, understandably, terribly worried when Regulus's bleeding hearts had started drooping. He had been her favorite of her underclassman, and she had sent him a letter back then with her great grumpy beast of an owl. It had been returned with a polite few lines about how NEWTs and the upcoming job search were proving to be quite the stressful combination, but thank you for your continued concern, I hope your post-graduation endeavors are going well, yours truly, Regulus Arcturus Black.

His plant had not improved. Percy had spent a lot of time mixing magical fertilizers with MiracleGro and spraying it down, as if this could've somehow helped its human counterpart, and sighing dramatically while patting a drooping leaf or two.

Regulus's plant had doggedly hung on for several long months. Their already brief letters slowed to a trickle before petering out entirely. Percy spent a lot of time in a foul mood, ranting to her mother's mums about "prideful gits" and "these stupid boys."

And then, well. Then his plant had died, and Percy had spent an altogether embarrassing amount of time crying in the garden about her idiot underclassman before wiping her eyes and continuing on with her life.

She should have dug his plant out then, to be honest. It was just a sad withered thing, barely hanging onto the supports she had put in when it had become apparent that it was sickly and not going to improve much. It was an ugly little patch in an otherwise vibrant garden, even if Avery's strawberries were turning sourer with each passing year. Evan's primroses had died several months later, and then that small bare patch had suddenly doubled in size. She had planted them together. They had been best friends; it had only been proper to put them side-by-side.

In the end, she had left both brittle brown husks where they were, unable to bear the thought of permanently removing every last trace of them from her life. It hadn't seemed right.

But that had been years ago.

She's not even at home when any significant change happens in her garden. She had been all the way in Ilfracombe, arranging an obnoxiously large amount of flowers for an equally obnoxiously large wedding. The newlyweds had been kind enough to let her stay for the reception, but by the time she manages to crawl home it is dark and she just wants to sleep for at least a straight twenty hours. She wakes up around noon to an abnormally sunny day, and is in the middle of fixing herself a cuppa when she happens to glance out the window.

For several disorienting minutes, she thinks she's still asleep. How else can she explain what she's seeing? Regulus's plant, which she had never been able to dig up and toss, is sporting fresh new buds. She nearly shatters her mug in her haste to slam it onto the kitchen counter, and then she's rushing out in her bare feet, hair a mess and infinitely thankful that the protective charms around her property mean her neighbors will never see her wild flight down the curving cobbles. The new growth is tiny, a tender baby-green that feels as soft and delicate as it looks when she ghosts a finger over them. The soil is dry though, and she smears dirt into her sweater when she fumbles in her pockets for her wand. With a curse, she realizes that she'd left it in the kitchen, and she bangs back into the house to grab it, running back out and shooting an _aguamenti_ that misses entirely and startles the neighbor's cat from within Avery's extremely tart strawberries.

"Oh, shit! Sorry!" she says, as the disgruntled cat hisses angrily at her and beats a hasty retreat. Her next spray of water hits its mark, and she spends the next half hour properly watering the garden while sneaking wondering looks at the plant.

"It's gotta be a joke, right?" she asks her mother's mums. The pretty flowers bob gently under a spray of water. "People don't just… they don't just _come back_ from the dead. Maybe that poor thing has been dead for so long it got confused. Maybe—"

She gasps, horrified. "An infestation! Shit, have I really been so busy these past few days that I let some _parasite_ enter my gardens? Unbelievable—"

The neighbor's cat slinks back to lay itself out on a particularly large stone not far from her. It blinks lazily up at her as she trails off, and she cancels the watering spell as she sighs. "Yeah, listen to me," she says wryly. "As if I can't tell my weeds from my garden plants at this age. Sorry for watering you too, earlier." She bends down and scratches him under the chin, earning a rumbling purr. "I'm a witch, aren't I? Sometimes weird things happen. Maybe this is like physics—we just can't explain it because we haven't gotten that far yet." A questioning mrr comes from the cat, and she puts her wand down so that she can use both hands to scratch under his furry little cheeks.

She startles herself when the first tear falls on his head. "What the hell," she mutters, scrubbing at her eyes. "Can't believe—can't _believe_ that idiot has the _nerve_ to die on me and then… and then just _come back to life_ —!" The tears don't stop, and she kind of hates them (for coming back) and him (for being so inconsiderate of others' feelings with his alleged resurrection) and herself (she thought she was over this, really).

It was a good thing Persephone Weaver wasn't one to just sit around and do nothing. Much like how she had forcibly wormed her way into his life back when she was in Second Year, she was going to shove her way into it again now. "Detective hats on, yeah?" she asks the cat, giving the squishy cheeks one last rub. "I'm gonna find him and give him a solid piece of my mind."


End file.
